I Kill Monsters

by Dennis Liggio

  It was a ghoul.

  It was very obvious from the bald head, the ugly features, the slightly pointed ears, and of course the low screeching. Normally at this range, I'd be in serious trouble. He'd be gnawing on my face, making appetizers out of my skin, preparing my internal organs for barbecue[24]. Luckily, I was someone who hunted monsters. I had seen people attacked in their homes, caught unaware. I knew the risks. So when I moved into this apartment, I made sure it had one feature I had to pay the superintendant extra to install.

  Bars on the windows.

  The ghoul was pissed. He held onto the bars, pushing and pulling like a monkey in the zoo, but to no avail. He pressed his face through the bars, screeching. He reached what he could of his hands through the bars, but unless I stood right next to the window, there was nothing he could do to me.

  I felt pretty damn proud of myself at that moment, even if Jessica was cowering in the corner and wondering how they found her. "Even here?" she added weakly.

  I stepped toward the ghoul tentatively, then held my bat horizontal in both hands, more like a pool cue. I lined up my shot, the ghoul unsure of what I was doing. Then I lunged forward, using the tip of the bat like a spear. It was just wide enough to slip between the bars and slam into the ghoul's head.

  There was a moment when the ghoul had this confused, dazed look on its face. I almost imagined the birds circling his head like in a vintage cartoon. Then his hands on the bars slowly loosened. His grip gone, he tipped over and fell to the ground many floors below us.

  I would have loved to revel in this comical bit of triumph, but I couldn't. I knew that if a ghoul was trying to break into my apartment, then there was a problem. For all my monster hunting, this is the first time my work had ever followed me home. This had to be something really bad. This was confirmed when I looked over to the fire escape and saw two more ghouls. Neither was going to be getting in through the window due to the bars, but just that they were trying was a huge problem.

  "Shit!" I said as I realized the next obvious step. I leapt over the bed and ran into the living room. I got there just in time to hear a heavy bang on my front door. Followed by another. And another. This wasn't someone knocking. This was someone trying to break it down.

  Looking out the peephole confirmed what I suspected. More ghouls. At least five of them in the cramped hallway. I hoped none of my neighbors were stupid enough to try to leave their apartments in the middle of the night, because I couldn't help them. Even on a good day, I don't think I could have taken five ghouls at once, and that would be with room to maneuver. There was no room here; that cramped hallway would remove nearly any advantage I had. It would be instant dog pile on Szandor and I'd be dead moments afterward.

  We were trapped.

  I went and checked the two other windows in my apartment. Both were rather small and also had bars. Looking out, I could see that ghouls were investigating them, but they clearly wouldn't be getting in through them. Bars would hold. But a wooden front door? It would hold for a while, but not forever. This was not good.

  Grabbing my phone, I called Mikkel.

  "I'm kinda busy," he said as soon as he picked up.

  According to the phone it was three in the morning. What was he doing besides sleep? I suddenly realized it was a girl.

  "Kick her out of bed, there's trouble," I said.

  "Whoa whoa whoa, hold on there," he said.

  "There are ghouls outside my apartment!"

  "Dead ones?"

  "Yeah," I said, "I just dragged a load of dead ghoul corpses up my stairs and stacked them outside my apartment just because. I thought it would add something to the building decor. Of course these ghouls are alive! They're at the windows and trying to break down the fucking door!"

  "I thought you had bars on your windows?"

  "Yes, and they're working fantastic now," I said. "But there are at least five fucking ghouls outside my door trying to break it down."

  "Wow, that really sucks," he said.

  "Get your ass over here!"

  "Now? It's like... what time is it?" There was the sound of someone else in the background. "Three in the morning!"

  "There are ghouls trying to break into my apartment."

  "Maybe they, like, I don't know, want to talk to you."

  "So help me, Mikkel, if I die, I'm going to come back and haunt you. I'll make sure no girl ever wants to sleep with you ever again. I'm not sure how I'm going to do it, but I will. I'll find a way. My ghostly vengeance will know no end."

  There was a pause. "I guess I could get over there... I mean, it'll be a while. I got something to take care of first."

  I let out a deep breath in frustration. Worst brother ever. While I had pleaded with my brother for help, Jessica had walked into the room. She was freaked out, but had enough sense to get her some clothes on: a pair of my jeans that were baggy on her and that Misfits shirt. This was in a stark contrast to me, who was still wearing just boxers.

  "Mikkel, Jessica's over here," I said.

  "What?"

  "She stayed over here... to be safe," I said, reading Jessica's look and thinking to preserve her virtuous reputation.

  "What?"

  "If you don't get your ass over here now, in addition to me, they're going to get her. And then we won't get paid. None of that great rich person retainer."

  "Shit. Fuck," said Mikkel, and I could hear that he was in motion. "Alright, I'm on my way over. Sorry, baby, gotta go." I began to hear the faint sound of protest in the background of the call before he hung up.

  "We may have help coming," I said to Jessica, tossing my phone down.

  "May?" she said.

  "I don't want to talk about my family troubles," I said.

  I turned back to the front door. The door had held so far and there were no holes in it, but it didn't seem to be doing well. I knew it was just a matter of time.

  "Help me," I said, grabbing one end of the couch and pulling it toward the door. It took Jessica a moment to realize what I meant, then she grabbed the other end. I lifted my end up high and we put it vertically against the door. I turned around and began scanning the room for other heavy objects.

  When you're in your home with flesh eating monstrosities at the door and you're waiting for a rescue that may never come, and if it does come, it may not be any better prepared at rescuing you than you are, you get industrious with your spare time. In a short while, we had every piece of living room furniture stacked in front of the door. I'm not sure if the additional furniture was actually useful in adding extra weight to block the door, but it would be an awesome setup if the floor was hot lava.

  "I think we've done all we can," I said, catching my breath.

  There was a heavy thump. The door lock broke, but the furniture seemed to keep the door closed. Then there was a pause. Then an even heavier thump. The couch fell forward, away from the door. It scattered some of the furniture we had stacked. Not good.

  "I'm really not happy about that," said Jessica, edging back away from the door.

  A few more heavy hits from the crowd of ghouls outside the door and more furniture was falling forward. They had the door open enough I could hear their screeching and the scraping of their claws on the walls. We didn't have long.

  Jessica stepped back behind me. I raised my bat and prepared for the oncoming tide.

  Mikkel, my cavalry, was on his way. After putting off Jillian to head over to my apartment and save my ass, he jumped in the Pork Chop Express[25]. He had no plan what to do yet, but he had the approximate five minute drive (assuming no traffic and he hit the lights right) to my apartment to think of something. On the plus side, he was driving a van full of weapons. Surely he had something that would be of use. Of course, we didn't have any high grade weapons or military overstock. We had got a few things from army surplus stores and some under-the-table buying, but we still didn't have a ton besides more medieval themed weapons. I bet he was wishing he had some sort of tear gas at the moment. />
  He wheeled the van onto my street, scanning the street for a parking spot. He didn't want to park illegally. He couldn't see any ghouls on the street, so if it took him a long time to find or fight them, the van might get towed. If you think his priorities were out of whack, remember that this was a van loaded down with weapons, industrial cleaners, and plastic bags that probably had quite a few blood stains that would come up on UV sweep. This is not a vehicle we wanted getting picked up by the authorities. Not unless we wanted to make a fast exit out of town and never get the van back. Also, the van was his baby. The Pork Chop Express probably holds a higher place in his life than most of the girls he dates[26]. I don't know why he loves that van so much.

  Luckily, there was a car peeling out of a space across from my apartment, their tires screeching as they drove off. Odds are, someone had come home, saw that the hallway seemed gummed up by a mob of flesh eating monsters, and decided he or she needed to find someplace still serving alcohol. Mikkel stroked the blue hair of the hula doll on the dash board, Lola Mandragora. He always swore she was responsible for his ease in parking in downtown New Avalon. Lola properly thanked, he pulled into the spot.

  He got out, pulled open the side of the van, then stepped in to consider the arsenal. He really wanted to use the crossbow, but considering that it had a slow rate of fire, a gang of ghouls were the wrong opponent. One of the few guns we had for emergencies made some sense, but soon after finishing off the ghouls, the building would be surrounded by half a dozen cop cars and he'd be considered some murderer since everyone would think dead ghouls were just malformed naked people. And that also assumed the cops weren't already on their way - surely after enough calls about naked savages in the apartment they'd take one seriously and send out some officers. This was not an easy decision and not one Mikkel would make quick. The fact that I was in danger did nothing to quicken his pace.

  Inside the apartment, the ghouls were slamming against the door, slowly pushing all the stacked furniture away from it. I was to one side of the door, trying to bash whatever pieces of their anatomy stuck through the door with my bat. Besides not having a good angle to hit them, the aluminum bat just didn't have the stopping power I wanted. It'd hurt or even daze them if I hit them, but it didn't have the same bone-crunching satisfaction of a lead pipe or a crowbar. However, neither my machete nor lead pipe had the reach I needed to hit them without putting myself in the danger zone. Suffice to say, any effort I was spending to repel the invaders was falling flat.

  When they had the door almost completely open, I was ready. I had dropped the bat and grabbed my lead pipe in one hand and machete in the other. I was going to be swarmed by a shit-ton of ghouls, but I was going to go out fighting. Hiding in my bathtub and crying had been considered but vetoed. I had to be brave for Jessica. She was probably going to die too, but some vague concession to masculinity made me want to impress her even in a very one-sided battle to the death.

  "This may get ugly," I said to her. She was peering out at me from a gap in the bathroom door. At least the hide in the bathtub and sob strategy wasn't going to waste.

  The ghouls pushed the door completely open. There was a mass screech of triumph. I took a deep breath and got ready.

  Just when I expected an all-clawing, all-biting wave of ghouls to come crashing over me, something strange happened. There was a strange buzzing sound, loud and quick, almost like electrical discharge. Then another.

  I wasn't sure what to make of it and neither were the ghouls. I could only see two of them through the open the door. They stood in the hallway, frozen in mid-step, confused. They turned to look behind them and began screeching. They ran out of my view and there was more buzzing.

  Had Mikkel finally showed up? That would be awesome, but then what was the buzzing? Did he have some new electric joy buzzer weapon I didn't know about? A vicious electric cattle prod? A savage anti-ghoul vibrator wielded my his flavor-of-the-week girlfriend?

  My answer came seconds later as I saw someone come into view. He was not a ghoul, but also very obviously not one of my neighbors. He had black kevlar armor, a black helmet, goggles, black clothes, and black boots. He was clearly some sort of soldier, though maybe an evil or emo soldier with all that black. Another of these commandos came right after him. They had strange rifles that weren't like anything I had seen before - the barrel was too wide and short for any bullet I knew of. I'd say that they were SWAT or police, but there was no insignia, writing, or any identifying marks on them. I suddenly wondered if some black helicopters had just landed.

  "Thank you for saving us -" I began to say.

  "No! They've found me!" yelled Jessica.

  Mikkel had finally decided on the football helmet, the football shoulder pads, and a gigantic medieval war hammer[27] when he heard the first truck. He originally thought it was just a delivery truck. But when it showed up, he realized it was actually much closer to a police SWAT vehicle. It was a heavy vehicle, painted completely black; probably armored. It had no logo, no police crest, nothing. It slowed to a halt in front of my apartment. Then another came from the other direction, then finally a third.

  From these vehicles poured out soldiers with some serious hardware. His recollection was similar to mine. Mikkel described them as having black kevlar and rifles. They had helmets, goggles, ear pieces, and those not wearing their helmets had military looking haircuts. Though their gear had no logos, Mikkel knew immediately that these were not the police. He knew that was either some seriously anonymous government black ops, or this was some other well-funded and well-trained non-government group. Paulie would have been freaking out if he was there.

  Most of the commandos were focused on my apartment building, but a few noticed Mikkel and his van, particularly Mikkel's strange gear. Two turned toward the Pork Chop Express and remained on guard. Not wanting to be mistaken for a ghoul, Mikkel pulled off his helmet and tossed it into the van. He moved away from the van very tentatively, pausing to lay the war hammer against the side of it. He decided that these would be the wrong set of folks to piss off and I don't blame him for that assessment. He very slowly and carefully approached the apartment.

  In a well-oiled pseudo-military fashion, the commandos had poured into the building and the alleyway. They were already dragging ghouls out of the alley from the fire escape. Mikkel noticed that these weren't dead ghouls. A few were stunned, but most weren't This shocked and amazed Mikkel: the commandos had somehow leashed the ghouls and were dragging them back to the SWAT vehicles. He watched the soldiers loaded the ghouls into the SWAT wagons like they were taking away prisoners.

  "What the fuck is going on?" said Mikkel.

  The black clad soldiers didn't want anything to do with me. As they clomped into my apartment (breaking as much or more furniture than the ghouls), one merely grunted and drove the butt of their rifle into my gut. I stumbled against the wall and collapsed, the wind knocked out of me. I wasn't sure if they actually didn't care about me or simply decided they wanted nothing to do with the half naked guy with the machete.

  They made a B-line for Jessica. There was no doubt that she was who they wanted. When she locked the bathroom door, they simply broke it down. They marched in and grabbed her out of the bathtub. Wriggling and shouting, she was thrown over one of their shoulders and carried out. She called for me to save her, but I had barely regained my breath.

  When I could finally stand up, I ran out after them. There were commandos in the hallway cleaning up ghouls, but I just walked past them. I wasn't going to attack them, I was very clearly outclassed. They decided to ignore the kid in his boxers with a machete.

  Outside, Mikkel had watched as a black BMW had driven up. Out of this stepped a man in a suit[28]. He had perfectly cropped blonde hair and a haughty expression. By the deference the commandos showed this man, he was clearly in charge. This also helped confirm this was not a military operation, as Suitguy was clearly business, not an officer. The soldiers began giving Suitguy status updates a
s they pulled the remaining ghouls out of the building and put them into the SWAT vehicles.

  Then Mikkel saw Jessica coming out of the building, still over a soldier's shoulder and still kicking and screaming. She was brought up to Suitguy. This is when Mikkel stepped in.

  "What the hell are you fuckers doing? Put her down!" shouted Mikkel.

  Suitguy inclined his head to Mikkel. One of the soldiers slammed the butt of his gun into Mikkel's face. Mikkel went down fast.

  I had barely gotten out onto the street when this happened. I suppressed the urge to go batshit crazy on their asses, as it would have gotten me shot, beaten, or tased. Because I came in late, I only caught bits of the conversation.

  "I should have known it was you," said Jessica.

  "I'm not sure what you're thinking, but this is an MT security issue," said Suitguy. "You need to be contained. You know how this goes. Running is futile. You knew this, even when you resorted to unskilled labor." He spread his hands in a gesture to indicate me, in my boxers, and Mikkel, sprawled on the ground clutching his face.

  "Every other avenue was burned," she said.

  "Nonsense, you could have just turned yourself in," he said. Then he turned to the commandos. "Put her in the car, we're leaving."

  In two minutes, they were gone, all their gear packed up, all their men loaded into trucks. Jessica was put into the BMW. Suitguy and her sped off and the SWAT vehicles followed. They cleaned up so quickly and so thoroughly, there was almost no evidence they had been there, aside from nosey neighbors peering out the edges of their blinds.

  I sat down on the curb next to Mikkel. He had pulled himself to a sitting position and was rubbing his face.

  "Are you okay?" I said.

  He rubbed his eye and blinked a few times. He had the beginning of a black eye. "This is all a bunch of bullshit."

  I nodded. "I'm sorry to get you out of bed, but as you can see, I was completely unprepared for this."

  He looked over to me, taking in the fact I was wearing only boxers and had a machete in my lap. He nodded. "At least you dressed for success."